Would you roll this CORONET?

The Coronet R/T only ever came with two engines — Dodge would not let anything softer wear the badge. One was the standard 440 Magnum, rated at 375 horsepower; the other was the far rarer 426 HEMI that turned an unassuming B-body into one of the era’s most feared street cars. By 1970, with just 2,615 R/Ts built out of over 114,000 Coronets, the model was already on its way out in favor of the Charger. Here’s what made this quiet-looking Mopar such a serious machine.

Classic black Dodge Charger parked outdoors on a sunny day.

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There’s a reason Mopar collectors go quiet when a genuine Coronet R/T rolls onto a show field. Underneath that Coke-bottle sheet metal sits a B-body that Dodge would only sell with one of two engines — nothing softer was ever allowed to wear the R/T badge. Most buyers walked away with the more common of the two, leaving the other to become one of the most sought-after options in muscle car history. The black example pictured here carries that same quiet tension: understated paint hiding a driveline that most Coronet shoppers in period never got to check on the order form. So what was actually available under that hood, and why did Dodge draw such a hard line on which engines could wear the name?

Only Two Engines Ever Wore the Badge

From 1967 through 1970, the Coronet R/T package came with exactly two engine choices: the standard 440 Magnum V-8, rated at 375 horsepower and 480 lb-ft of torque, backed by a three-speed TorqueFlite automatic, or the extra-cost 426 HEMI, rated at 425 horsepower and paired with a four-speed manual. There was no small-block option and no compromise trim — Dodge treated the R/T name as a performance floor, not a marketing add-on. The 1968 redesign, shared with the Charger and Plymouth Belvedere on the same B-body platform, replaced the Coronet’s sharper early-1960s lines with the rounder, more muscular “Coke bottle” profile that still defines the era.

A Split Grille, a Shrinking Nameplate

By 1970, the Coronet R/T received its final Dodge-era redesign, growing to 209.7 inches overall behind a new split grille. It would be the last year for the R/T on the Coronet nameplate — Dodge produced 114,955 Coronets across all body styles that year, and only 2,615 of them were R/Ts, a sliver of the lineup even before splitting out how many carried the HEMI. After 1970, Dodge shifted its performance halo squarely onto the Charger, and the Coronet R/T quietly exited the catalog.

Why It Still Turns Heads at Shows

HEMI-powered Coronet R/Ts now rank among the most valuable Mopars sold at auction, but even the far more common 440 cars carry real weight with collectors — the R/T package guarantees a genuine muscle-car driveline under unassuming styling that never got the spotlight Dodge gave the Charger. That combination of rarity, honest performance, and relative anonymity is exactly why a clean example like this one still stops people at a show.

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